


I’ll wake you tomorrow and you will be my fill

by wajjs



Series: Time after Time [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Immortality, Not Beta Read, Roman shows up through someone else's pov and then is mentioned a few times, Time Skips, Timeline Shenanigans, can be read as pre-relationship, not permanent character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-18 00:31:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20630114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wajjs/pseuds/wajjs
Summary: Jason comes back. He comes back and this time there's no coffin, no soil pressing down on him, no multiple wounds making all his movements all the more useless. This time, most of his mind is there. Some things stay the same: when he hits the streets, he's as alone and lost as he once was, back then. There is no mercy for the dead.





	I’ll wake you tomorrow and you will be my fill

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Cat Steven's song _Lady D'Arbanville_
> 
> I was SUPPOSED to be studying, but, as you can see, things happened. Things be like that sometimes!

**I’ll wake you tomorrow and you will be my fill**

When he looks down at his hands, he can’t help but wonder: why am I the last one?

The world all around him keeps crumbling down and there’s no semblance of company here. He never thought he’d ever be quite this lonely. He never thought he’d live long enough to feel this way.

Time, what a tricky bastard. You think you’ve got it figured out and then you realize you’ve been the one that was discovered, not the other way around.

It shakes his foundations in ways nothing ever quite managed to. Not death, not fire, not pain. He doesn’t want this, he can’t get rid of it, he doesn’t want things to be like they are.

The gutshot is still bleeding when he picks up the burner phone with shaking hands and calls the only person he thinks might be able to make something out of this. His own self betrays him, he can never rest.

“I need your help,” he says into the receiver the moment he’s sure someone’s listening. “Fuck. I need all your help.”

His eyes land on the mess of blood and entrails sprawled out on his lap. He’d gag if he wasn’t quite busy panicking.

“Please,” he says into the silence and fears that time has tricked him again.

Shadows, first, disembodied shadows that soon turn into hands, into arms, into shoulders, extremities that push and prod. Shadows, first. He can see them even when he can’t see at all. Only a few feel familiar. Only most feel like ghosts.

  
  


Does it matter where he is? The ground is all the same when he falls with heavy weight upon his knees, when he’s struggling to breathe, his helmet’s smashed to smithereens and the barrel of a gun is pressed between his eyes. Does it matter who’s holding the gun, when he will bleed and die just the same? But this is not his ending, he thinks and offers a grin that’s all teeth and no niceties.

“Do your worst,” Jason says then and spits on the polished black shoe that’s right in front of him, “it’ll be nothing.”

Mask to mask, they share one final laugh before the gun goes off.

  
  


Jason comes back. He comes back and this time there's no coffin, no soil pressing down on him, no multiple wounds making all his movements all the more useless. Jason opens his eyes to find himself in the same basement and the sound of the sea echoing off the walls. This time, most of his mind is there. Some things stay the same: when he hits the streets, he's as alone and lost as he once was, back then. There is no mercy for the dead.

The gap in his memory is a small one, the details are hazy but if he thinks hard enough he can follow the pattern. Few street kids see him and run away faster than if he'd been a cop. Maybe they can tell, they can tell that his brain's been all blown out. Or maybe it's the smoke coming from behind him, a long ago abandoned factory burning up with all evidence of his demise.

It doesn't matter. It's better this way. His blood doesn't sing to the tune of green-tinted whispers, but it marches with the rhythm of death.

Finding one of his safehouses takes longer than usual. He’s still relearning all of his coordination abilities and can’t help but think that maybe it’s the neuronal connections just taking their time getting back in place. Or maybe he’s in a state of shock and this is an expected reaction to being shot in the head and somehow coming back from  _ that. _ But it’s not like he has any reference he can check up on, or like he’s ever truly reacted like any other human being before. It sits uneasily in his gut and he doesn’t know what to make of it. All this time he’s lived thinking that you only live twice and your first death is simply a rehearsal. What is he supposed to do when he defies logic more than once?

There’s a question burning at the forefront of his mind, one he repeatedly tries to push back and ignore. He doesn’t want to consider it. Doesn’t want to give it any kind of space. No matter how much he fears the answer (especially because of how much he fears the answer). Instead he methodically counts his injuries and goes through every step of getting a shower twice. He’s being an extremist. He’s being delusional. He’s human. He’s human. He’s human.

Jason’s hands shake as he loots the small kitchen and finds only one unopened beer. He doesn’t even bother checking the expiration date, simply uncaps it with the desperation of someone running away from all their nightmares and drinks half of it at once. He closes his eyes and remembers the sight of his brains scattered on the floor. He blinks and he’s back in that basement. He blinks and he’s in a warehouse with the clock a bomb about to mark his final moments. The bottle shatters at his feet, leaves a mess on the ground.

So many bastards have tried to leave taking a piece of him. So many bastards have sought out to destroy every little piece of him until there’s nothing left to mend back together. Yet here he stands. Shaking so badly he cuts his hands open picking up pieces of green-brown glass. His blood is still blood and his pain hurts all the same. One shard digs a little bit deeper, almost touching bone, and all he can think is  _ How am I going to explain  _ this  _ to Alfred? _

Not five minutes after walking into the cave and Dick, yet to don his Nightwing outfit, is already gripping him by his forearm, stopping him from moving any further.

“Where were you?” He asks looking like someone who cares and Jason is far from the ideal mood needed to deal with feelings and these assholes he happens to appreciate. In full Red Hood gear, with his mask on and his helmet under his arm, he feels as protected as he can be while still feeling like he’s not safe at all. “You disappeared for two weeks, Jason.”

He knows. A handful of those days were spent alone in his safehouse, trying to make a damn sense of life.

“Busy,” he shrugs and looks at Dick while he says so, lest the idiot thinks right for once and realizes he’s hiding a lot of things waiting to be unpacked, “here and there. Busy weeks.”

Dick, the prick, frowns and his eyes turn icy. “Do you really  _ think _ I’m going to buy that? _Where_ were you, Jay?”

“Don’t call me  _ Jay _ ,” he snaps without meaning and everyone’s looking at them now. The cut in his hand, still healing, begins to itch. “I was fucking busy. Do I have to report every single shit that I do now? Because  _ fuck that _ , I’m as trustworthy as—”

“Black Mask’s activity seems to have slowed down,” Bruce-a-bit-Batman interrupts and Jason just hates it, hates how that asshole can chill him more than death has. He turns his head to look at the oldest nuisance in the room and presses his lips together. “In the same weeks that an abandoned factory suddenly went up in flames.”

There’s no direct accusation. There doesn’t need to be. Before Jason can fully prepare himself for it, Bruce-mostly-Batman, asks:

“What happened?”

Tim finds him only a couple of hours later and only because Jason made clear that he had gone to the cave needing to talk to him. He’s lightning up another cigarette and lets it dangle precariously from the plush support of the pillow of his lower lip. Dodging Bruce’s and Dick’s questions hadn’t been easy, and he hadn’t managed to slip away without admitting some things or without Alfred noticing the wound in his hand and asking to take a look at it. He managed to keep his dying to himself, and he knows there are no records (physical or digital) left that he hadn’t destroyed by now. If he plays his cards right and acts like it never happened, then it never happened. But he can’t trust Roman to get on with the memo.

“Jason?” Tim’s voice doesn’t sound small but it doesn’t sound sure. “You wanted to talk to me.”

“Maybe,” he lets his own voice carry from the open window he’s sitting next to, blowing the smoke that passes through his lips and out of his nose outside, into the polluted air.

“You went to the cave, asked about my whereabouts and proceeded to dodge all following questioning. I think ‘maybe’ doesn’t quite cut it,” with Jason’s back to him, he can’t see the tiny smile Tim offers him. Though he can  _ feel _ the judgement when the ashtray filled with used filters is seen. “That’s going to kill you.”

“HA,” he barks out and presses the lit point of his cigarette down hard into the pile of ashes. “Wouldn’t be the first thing that tries.”

The silence that follows stretches too big and too thick, a gooey substance that grows holes the more it’s tugged in two opposing directions and that melts into their conscience and into the floor. Tim is assessing him assessing the row of filters and ashes. The way Jason’s fingers twitch towards either the half-crushed packet of cigarettes or the thigh-straps holding his guns.

“This is about what happened with Sionis,” Tim cuts through the globs of silence and takes a step closer. He never was quite good at caring about his personal safety.

“Maybe,” Jason concedes and forgoes the gun for one of his many knives, nicking his fingertips in his carelessness.

He frowns. “I don’t usually deal with—”

“I know,” this time, Jason does look at Tim and maskless, the sincerity in his eyes leaves Tim breathless. “But I’m not asking for help with him.”

It’s clear that even without further clarification he’s got Tim’s attention, the good and the bad of it. “Who, then?”

Jason licks his lips once, twice. Feels his heart skipping some beats, in the oddity of its slower than normal rhythm.

“I’m not sure.”

He gets reckless, that’s the truth.

Deep down and on the surface he knows that the only way of confirming his theory is  _ testing _ it. On himself. So he gets reckless and bites bigger mouthfuls until he gets more than he can kind-of chew. A shot to the gut, bleeding out in a random alley, surrounded by trash and rats. The windows of the building closing in on him are all blacked out and covered with old newspaper sheets. Any day now it’s either going to be demolished or it’s going to fall under its own historical weight.

“Hood!” Red Robin screams as he releases the catch of his grapple to half leap-half run towards him. He sounds too frantic. Doesn’t he know…?

“Ah, shit,” he grimaces when even moving a muscle in his leg makes pain shoot like sparks throughout his body, “I forgot.”

“Hood, you’re—Fuck, how long have you been—”

“Hey, heey, tweety,” Jason tilts his head to look at him but after losing so much blood that’s supposed to stay  _ inside _ , it must look like he’s just spasming around, “heeeey, tweety bir’, I’m a’ight.”

“Like hell you are!” And Tim’s hands are pressing down on his abdomen, trying to stem the blood flow that’s already quite sluggish, “You aren’t even wearing—shit, were you hoping you’d get shot?” Jason hums, trying to lift a hand but it just… flops next to his thigh. Huh. “Shit, shit,  _ don’t _ die on me—Oh god,” his tweety bird voice breaks then, a painful thing, even more so than the hole in Jason’s stomach. “Don’t die on me,  _ please, please, don’t die _ ”

Something vicious and awful tugs and tears at Jason’s heart. He doesn’t like this one bit. He didn’t think… he didn’t think the tiny bird would cry quite like this.

“I—,” his throat constricts and there are black spots dancing in his vision. He’s out of time. Tricky, slippery bastard. “I’ll—I…”

  
  


The shadows know his name, this time. They now know how to scream it.

He runs through them and tries to escape. The sound of his name being turned into a chant is one that will forever haunt him.

  
  


He’s cold when he comes to. Cold, inside and outside. There’s no headache, though, no worms biting his fingertips or brain matter all over the floor. He’s clean, for starters. And even though he’s cold, he recognizes the press of blankets. With half-open eyes he sees Tim asleep in a chair by his side, shoulders hunched and head hanging low. The poor idiot is going to wake up with a hell of a crick in the neck. He’s grateful, though. So grateful.

“Hey,” he croaks once and has to cough to clear his throat before trying to talk again. “Timmers. Timber. Tweety. Ti-”

Crystalline eyes open up wide and for half a second stare at nothing before in the next half they are staring at him, all big and encompassing. Jason doesn’t even have a moment to think of a smartass thing to say when Tim’s eyebrows are scrunching up together in a mockery of a frown and his lips curl down with worry and sadness.

“Oh,” Jason says, eloquent as always, “ _ uh. _ ”

Tim doesn’t stand from the chair. Rather, he flings himself at Jason and punches him in the shoulder. “You—you asshole! Selfish, egotistical, asshole—”

“Said that twice-”

“—reckless, suicidal-,” like a mirror, in a reflection of the last night Jason has memory of, his voice breaks again into thousands of little shards. The hand that had punched him now tugs on the fabric of the plain tee he’s been given. “Why, why did you-  _ Jason _ ,” and wow, maybe this is the afterlife and Jason’s in his own version of hell, because Tim is fucking  _ crying _ , “you  _ died _ . I, I felt the moment you died. Saw how you stopped…”

Following a sudden hunch, doing what he never thought he’d end up doing, he frees his arms from the blankets and wraps them around the other. Perhaps he should’ve thought things better. Perhaps he should’ve told weeping Timmy here the whole truth from the start. Well. What an awful time to fully come to terms with the fact that he can’t turn back time. Where’s Cher when one needs her?

“But it didn’t stick,” he says and holds onto Tim because Tim needs it more than he needs any kind of human contact. Hugs him and eases a little when Tim lets go of the fight in his body and holds him back. “It didn’t stick, I’m here, all nice and perfect as usual.”

“Perfect?” Tim lets out something close to a grunt, “Nice?”

“Hey now, no slandering the revenant!”

The moment doesn’t last forever. Neither of them would’ve known what to do if it had. Tim goes back to his chair and gives Jason enough space to sit up, groaning only a little as the movement makes him feel queasy. Either like he ate too much or nothing at all.

“How long…?”

“Two days,” he says, badly suppressing a shiver, “but you began…healing… around twenty minutes after you died.”

“Huh,” scratching his head, he then rests against the headboard before lifting the tee to check if he has any kind of bandages around his stomach. He doesn’t. “That’s interesting. The last time it took me nearly two weeks—”

Outside, the strength of sunshine isn’t dimmed by the constant smug. The world keeps going even after accidental admissions.

They dedicate all of their spare time in their investigation. Nothing ever comes up.

Jason sometimes dreams of the shadows and the many passageways, sometimes he’s awake when he sees them, when he feels the drag of multiple hands over the exposed skin of his forearms. He tries hard to stay away from the family, though on those days he tries even harder. He’s afraid, he notices. Afraid of what time will bring him. Afraid of admitting he’ll never have a place to stay. There’s no  _ forever _ for him, only present.

He didn’t ask for this. He doesn’t want this. He visits old temples, revisits forgotten words, trying to find anything: a solution. A clue. Is there someone out there like me?

And time goes on and on for everybody else, for him it pauses whenever it feels like it, toys with him, cheats him in his waking moments. Man that stands out of time, forgotten and on his own path. He never asked for this loneliness. He only asked for a chance at happiness. Perhaps that was his only hubris. Perhaps that was what set him on this road to failure.

He looks down at his hands and there’s nothing for him to hold in them. No one. He’s the last one. The first one in a line that was only ever formed by him.

The world all around keeps moving and moving, coming down like a house of cards. There’s no hope of company here. He’s lonely. He’s going to live even longer knowing he will continue to be. But he has these memories, you see? Memories of when he wasn’t. Memories of when he had a home.

He has these memories that he gazes upon by the light of buildings on fire. And for a moment his shadow is not the only one that grazes the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> <strike>pls validate me</strike>


End file.
